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Notes on state of pol

Sabato's Crystal Ball

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

Arkansas now a Toss-up It’s become clear over the past few months that Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), despite the increasing Republican lean of his state, has been holding his own, or better, against Rep. Tom Cotton (R, AR-4). Several positive polls for the incumbent, including a too-optimistic 11-point lead from NBC/Marist earlier this week, moved the HuffPost Pollster average in the race to 45.2% Pryor, 42.7% Cotton. Democrats are defending seven Senate seats in states that Mitt Romney won in 2012. In three of these races — Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — we perceive a clear Republican edge, and have for months. Meanwhile, there are three others — Alaska, Louisiana and North Carolina — that we have seen as Toss-ups for months, and close polls in all three states confirm that view. With a Leans Republican rating, we had Arkansas lumped in with the first group, but it really belongs with the second group. Table 1: Senate ratings change Our most recent Senate ratings are shown in Map 1 below. Map 1: Crystal Ball Senate ratings In his Politico Magazine column earlier this week, U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato gave a full overview of the

Kyle Kondik

Notes on the State of Politics

April quiet brings May excitement After two states, Texas and Illinois, held the first primary contests of the 2014 election calendar in March, April featured exactly zero. But a month and a half of inactivity will give way to a busy May primary season with 11 scheduled elections, as seen below in Table 1. Table 1: Upcoming primaries in May Note: Texas held its primary on March 4, with some races advancing to the state’s May 27 runoff. The first Tuesday of the month, May 6, features primaries in Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio. The Tar Heel State features the marquee contest, the Senate primary on the Republican side. There, the millions-of-dollars question is whether or not state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) can win at least 40% of the primary vote to avoid an expensive runoff against one of the other seven Republican candidates in the field. Recent polls and our sources suggest Tillis may accomplish this task, which would allow him to save resources for the general election matchup against Sen. Kay Hagan (D). A week later, Nebraska and West Virginia will have their turns. Neither state has an incumbent running in a statewide contest, which is particularly notable in the very conservative

UVA Center for Politics

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

2012 vs. 2013 Virginia vote shares quite close In early October, the Crystal Ball discussed the election-to-election relationship of the percentage of the total statewide vote each Virginia locality casts. While the correlation between 2009 and 2012 vote shares was almost perfect (R ­= .996), there was noticeably large voter drop-off in a few cities and counties in the Old Dominion’s off-off year gubernatorial election. But what about the 2013 gubernatorial race versus the 2012 presidential race? This time around, based on figures available Tuesday, the correlation between the 2012 and 2013 results is R = .999, even closer to 1, which would indicate a perfect correlation. That statistic reveals that the relative influence of most Virginia localities’ vote totals — that is, the share of the statewide vote each provided — remained more static from 2012 to 2013 than from 2009 to 2012. Chart 1: Correlation analysis of locality vote share, 2012 and 2013 Note: Fairfax County (13.73% of the vote in 2012, 13.65% in 2013) has been visually excluded from the chart in order to better view the data. But its data were included in the actual calculations. If we dig into the results locality-by-locality, we can see

UVA Center for Politics

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

Sarvis just the latest Virginia long shot This November, there will be only one statewide candidate out of seven in Virginia who doesn’t have “Republican” or “Democrat” next to his name. That individual is Robert Sarvis, who is running as a Libertarian for governor. (The other contests, for lieutenant governor and attorney general, feature only major-party candidates.) However, history suggests that his chances of winning are slim: Since the beginning of the 20th century, every Virginia gubernatorial winner has been a member of one of the two major parties. In fact, since 1925 only one non-major party nominee has come close to winning in the Old Dominion, and that was in 1973, when Democrat-turned-Independent Henry Howell lost by less than 1.5 percentage points to Democrat-turned-Republican Mills Godwin. But that election featured special circumstances: There was no Democrat on the ticket, just Howell, a liberal who had narrowly lost in the party’s fractious 1969 gubernatorial primary, only to then win a special election for the lieutenant governorship as an Independent in 1971. While Howell was backed by many Democrats, he eschewed the Democratic banner in 1973, possibly to help avoid connections to George McGovern’s crushing presidential loss only a year before.

Geoffrey Skelley

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

Democrats catching breaks in North Carolina While we’re keeping the toss-up rating of the North Carolina Senate race, it’s reasonable to question the Republicans’ chances there against first-term Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC). The top announced candidate for the GOP is Thom Tillis (R), speaker of the state House of Representatives. National Republicans do not seem all that thrilled with his candidacy, and grassroots conservative leaders aren’t really on board either. For instance, RedState.com editor Erick Erickson has endorsed Greg Brannon (R), a conservative physician. Our North Carolina sources don’t seem to think that Brannon would be a particularly viable general election candidate, but the Erickson endorsement is giving him some oxygen at the moment — and, in a Republican primary, who knows what could happen? With Tillis in the race, and state Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger (R) looming as another potential candidate, Republicans have to be alarmed that their eventual candidate might be a leader of the controversial state legislature, which has taken the state in a conservative direction and inspired a series of liberal protests, called “Moral Mondays.” Earlier this week, Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed a strict voter ID law, which also limits early voting. Democrats

Kyle Kondik

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

Massa-snooze-etts: A steady special election comes to a close The Massachusetts special Senate election is next Tuesday, and despite a lot of noise to the contrary, the race is not particularly close, nor has it been at any point of the contest. Rep. Ed Markey (D) has been and is a fairly strong favorite to defeat ex-Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez (R). We’ve consistently held our rating of this race at “likely Democratic,” and that’s where it remains. Markey — at best an average candidate — has benefited from being a Democrat in a Democratic state, and Gomez has failed to morph into Scott Brown 2.0. Democrats, leery of a repeat of the 2010 Brown upset, have poured a significant amount of outside money into the contest, while the Republican outside groups have largely stayed out. The failure of national Republicans to invest in the race told us that they did not believe the race was really winnable. The public polling in this race has been pretty much static. In Huffington Post’s Pollster average, Markey has held a steady, high-single-digit lead on Gomez. On May 1 (right after the special election primaries), Markey was up 9.2 percentage points in the average;

UVA Center for Politics

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

Exit Bachmann Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R, MN-6) decision not to seek a fifth term in the U.S. House makes it likelier that Republicans will hold her heavily Republican district. So we’re switching the rating in MN-6 from “leans Republican” to “likely Republican.” Yes, it’s odd to argue that a party is better served by an incumbent retiring rather than running for another term in an institution where more than nine in 10 members who run for reelection are reelected, but Bachmann is no ordinary incumbent. The suburban Twin Cities Republican has always been controversial, and her image as the “Queen of the Tea Party” (as dubbed by the Weekly Standard) has proven to be a liability even in MN-6, the most Republican district in Minnesota. Only four Republican members of the House ran further behind Mitt Romney in their districts in 2012: three freshmen members and two-term Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R, TN-4), another incumbent with problems. Bachmann barely won reelection last year against wealthy Democratic businessman Jim Graves in 2012, and she was in for a tough rematch this time, particularly because she now has ethical and legal questions to go along with her highly polarizing image. Perhaps Republicans will

UVA Center for Politics

Notes on the State of Politics

2016 Presidential Update: The newest shiny object Last week, intense speculation centered on freshman Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) possible presidential aspirations. The revelation has prompted all sorts of reactions, including a positive one from the unlikeliest of sources. While some have asked questions about his constitutional eligibility to run for the highest office in the land, Cruz’s strong conservative appeal could very well make him a force in the next presidential race. For that reason, he deserves a place on our list of 2016 GOP hopefuls, though he starts near the bottom. In some ways, the rise of someone like Cruz into the Republican presidential discussion is unsurprising. Cruz is the newest shiny object for Tea Party members and constitutional conservatives in the GOP, supplementing those who prefer Rand Paul or Marco Rubio (though the shine is off Rubio because he favors immigration reform). It is a reminder that in the next three years, even newer, shinier objects may come to the fore. For example, if Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) wins the state’s governorship this November, it is an easy prediction that he will consider a presidential run, with strong backing from his intense supporters. Barack Obama’s promotion

UVA Center for Politics

Notes on the State of Politics

The Little Things Matter Many politicians may not want to admit it, but much of political success is built on timing and luck. In what is probably going to be a close election on Nov. 6, every small turn of fortune for each candidate could serve as the little push that puts one over the top on Election Day. Looking back at some recent events, who appears to be the luckier candidate at the moment, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney? A federal judge ruled that Ohio must allow in-person voting on the weekend before the presidential election. Although the ruling is being appealed, 93,000 votes were cast during this period in 2008, and it’s believed to be worth tens of thousands of votes to Obama. Conservative ex-Rep. Virgil Goode has qualified for ballot access in Virginia as the Constitution Party candidate, potentially siphoning off some votes from Romney in Goode’s home state. Some Republican electors who support Ron Paul have threatened to withhold their electoral votes from Romney. A judicial panel ruled that Nevada can keep its “None of the above” ballot option, much to the chagrin of Republicans who didn’t want another voting option for voters who disapprove of

Geoffrey Skelley

Notes on the State of Politics: Recapping Wisconsin

Walker’s Wisconsin win not necessarily a harbinger As soon as the recall of Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) was finalized in mid-March, the Crystal Ball made Walker a favorite, giving the race a rating of leans Republican. We upgraded his chances roughly two weeks ago to likely Republican, and he ended up winning by a relatively comfortable seven-point margin. Walker led in all recent public polling, and we also sensed that a critical Democratic/Independent slice of the state’s electorate was sick of the constant turmoil caused by recall mania over the past year and a half. As exit polling indicated, many voters viewed recall as a remedy only to be used for official misconduct in office, not to be employed for simple disagreement with an elected official’s policy choices. These voters made the difference for Scott Walker, and they are not necessarily available to Mitt Romney. Wisconsin may or may not turn into a swing state this year — that’s yet to be determined — but the presidential contest will be run under different conditions with two candidates not named Walker and Tom Barrett (the latter having been, for a second time, a second-rate contender). There are five months to go

UVA Center for Politics

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

How Santorum can win by losing April 3 was a one-two punch in favor of Mitt Romney. Wisconsin was Rick Santorum’s last, best chance to slow Romney’s inevitability train. And the Tuesday engine pulling the Romney train, oddly enough, was driven by Barack Obama. In front of America’s newspaper editors, he all but declared his November opponent to be Romney. No, Obama didn’t name Mitt because he feared Rick. The president simply accepted reality. Whether and when Santorum accepts reality is another question. He deserves full credit for making the most of very little money and overcoming a 17% reelection loss to emerge as the strongest anti-Romney candidate. Santorum has earned another run in 2016 or 2020. But it is three long weeks until the next set of primaries. He is guaranteed to lose four of five contests on that day, and he may even lose Pennsylvania — a potentially crippling embarrassment for his future plans. Santorum has no real chance to stop Romney and may squander the admiration he has won in the GOP base. It is an easy choice for Santorum, if he thinks about it in the campaign lull to come. Yes, Santorum can win some May primaries in favorable territory, but

UVA Center for Politics

Notes on the State of Politics

So much for that anti-incumbent wave Last week’s primary loss by Rep. Jean Schmidt, a southwest Ohio Republican, ginned up curiosity in Tuesday night’s congressional primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, where several House incumbents were supposedly in danger of losing their primaries. That list included powerful House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R) of Alabama. That said, all 11 House incumbents in Mississippi and Alabama (nine Republicans and two Democrats) were renominated on Tuesday, and none of their races was particularly close. Even in a time of widespread discontent with Congress, it’s unwise at this point to predict that many House incumbents will fail to be renominated by their own parties. In the post-World War II era, 1992 featured the greatest number of House incumbents defeated in primaries: 19 out of 368 members who sought reelection to the House lost in a primary. In other words, even in a supposedly bad year for incumbents, primary voters in 95% of contests that year were happy to give their incumbents a shot at another term. And that was a redistricting year, just like this year, which always complicates House elections because of map changes and added or subtracted seats. Will more

UVA Center for Politics

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

Crystal Ball flashback: What fuels presidential approval? With increasing gas prices again dominating the national news — stories about prices at the pump led network news broadcasts on Tuesday night — we wanted to remind readers of a piece we published last year about gas prices and their effect on presidential approval. Former Crystal Ball staffer Isaac Wood, now a student at the University of Virginia School of Law, took a look at the question and came to the following conclusion: On the one hand, it is clearly true that high gas prices often coincide with lower presidential approval ratings. As political scientists have long demonstrated, these approval ratings are a strong indicator of a president’s reelection chances. As we have seen, though, gas prices alone certainly are not a perfect predictor of approval ratings or, indirectly, reelection. While continually rising gas prices would likely weaken Obama’s reelection standing, it would be just one of many factors voters consider when evaluating his first term. To read the full article, click here. — The Editors Correction on presidents and their home states Last week’s Crystal Ball contained an error about the number of presidents who won the presidency without winning their

UVA Center for Politics

Notes on the State of Politics

Modern Cabinets: No “Team of Rivals” With Mitt Romney leading in the Republican nomination battle, there has been talk of what kind of roles the other GOP candidates might occupy in a hypothetical Romney administration. Naturally, the first position discussed is vice president, but there has also been talk of Cabinet appointments, and it is certainly possible that some of Romney’s foes would make plausible candidates. However, recent history tells us that incoming presidents do not typically appoint their former rivals for the nomination. Many incoming presidents have surely reacted skeptically to the idea of bringing in individuals who had so recently opposed them; perhaps they even responded as Barbara Walters did when she heard Herman Cain state that he would hypothetically be open to taking the secretary of defense position. If we look at presidential Cabinets from 1960 to now, we found only four Cabinet appointments by incoming presidents that came from the intraparty competition. First, in 1968, George Romney (Mitt’s father) ran an abortive campaign for the GOP nomination, and ended up becoming Richard Nixon’s first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Nixon also appointed Massachusetts Gov. John A. Volpe as transportation secretary, but Volpe’s presidential campaign

UVA Center for Politics

Notes on the State of Politics

Ben Nelson and the Senate calculus Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) decision to retire makes a Republican takeover of the Senate a little more likely, but just a little more. It does not dramatically change the Senate landscape. Why? Because Nelson could easily have lost if he ran again. Still, out of deference to the powers of incumbency, we had previously kept Nebraska as a toss up. Now that Nelson has retired, we have switched our rating in this race to LIKELY REPUBLICAN, and that could become “safe” eventually. It appears that the only big-name Democrat who could make this a race is former Sen. Bob Kerrey, but we’ll be surprised if he runs. Apparently, the remaining Democratic bench consists of various mayors and state legislators who would have a steep uphill climb to victory. In any event, the Republican nominee for president is likely to get 60% or more of the vote in Nebraska, which will make it very difficult for the Democratic candidate. This is a polarized, highly partisan era, very different than the one that nurtured such Nebraska Democratic U.S. senators as Kerrey, Nelson, Jim Exon and Ed Zorinsky. In 2000 Nelson won a Senate squeaker despite George

UVA Center for Politics